Boyle-ing Points

Pictures Worth 1000 Words (Or A Bag Of Mail Letter)

Commentary By Kevin Boyle

Thanks to a grant from the Department of the Interior, a Japanese road crew is coming here to fix Rockaway roads! The Japanese crew has agreed to fly over and fix potholes and sinkholes on Beach Channel Drive. They’re going to put on hold their own recovery efforts because it should only take about 15 minutes out of their day. Look closely at the two pictures. Don’t get confused by which is the “Before picture” and which is the “After.” The destroyed, collapsed road is seen after the recent earthquake (uh, the one in Japan not the one on Beach Channel). The second picture was taken six days later. Six days! The road is good as new. Six days! And lucky for us, just before the summer season hits, the Japanese will hurry over here and get things done.

Except it’s an April Fools joke. Sorry. Even if they wanted to come over they’d have to wait until jurisdiction was settled. Ya know, who owns the pot holes. The Beach wall. The mess on the bay from the Gil Hodges bridge to Neponsit. I gotta say it again, the resilient Japanese fixed that stretch of road in six days.

Anthony WeinerYeah, I know, big deal. It’s because they like smooth roads. Rockaway people are tough. We like roads that look like the surface of the moon. We’re the resilient ones. We don’t need no stinkin smooth roads. Send the Japanese to the Gowanus overpass instead.

Because it’s picture day in Boyle-ing Points I can make this segue without my elderly readers getting whiplash. The Wave conducted a survey recently and it was revealed that readers of this column are the sorts who still use rotary phones. Some have heard of – but never actually used – email. They think a tweet is something Elmer Fudd gives out on Halloween. That’s all well and good but sometimes that Internet thing can be really useful. The following pic comes via Twitter. This soon to be iconic photo is being framed and is going up on my mother’s wall in between John F. Kennedy and Pope John XXIII.

Pop culture followers can decide if he looks more like one of the Jonas Brothers or the kid from TV’s Saved by the Bell. (Who had a post-TV career not too dissimilar to politics).

Boyle-ing Points: Have they broken ground on the YMCA yet? Or have they changed their mind and are playing it safe by going with a nail salon, dollar store, and a pharmacy? Because we need more of those. ***Weiner has his eye on City Hall but he better watch out for competition from City Councilman James Sanders. Sanders is already acting like a mayor &ndash; he&rsquo;s living rent free. Gotta love a guy who helps run the city but puts nothing down on a $580,000 house and then cries that he was a victim of predatory lending.***Gateway and Fort Tilden don't like all the negative publicity so they've hired a top flight Madison Avenue ad agency. The new slogan they're unveiling this week: Stop The Play, Let It Decay.